


Ad Infinitum

by perfect_light



Category: White Collar
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-30
Updated: 2014-04-30
Packaged: 2018-01-21 09:14:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1545503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perfect_light/pseuds/perfect_light
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU but relatively Canon if you hold it upside down and squint. Just gives a different point of view, a different possible origin, on what happened. Spoilers especially for Season 1 and 5.</p><p>As anyone with computer knowledge will see immediately, I have horribly little knowledge of programing, other than hearing clever friends moan about bloated, inefficient programs. Just go with it, okay?</p><p>Characters and background belong to Jeff Eastin. Alternate motivations, story-bits and mistakes, mine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ad Infinitum

 

 

They had plenty of time to reminisce, had they felt like doing so. Their part up to this point was done, planned and carried out perfectly. They had no control over the stupidity, caution or what-you-may-call it of others!

 Most of the time they sat in silence. Mozzie finished the last of the wine. Neal leaned against the wall, resting. He had become very good at waiting over the years.

 When he thought back, the first thing he _**remembered**_ was leaving school sometime in his fifteenth year. It was summer, the sunshine golden, warm, happy. He had memories before that, of course, but they seemed like faded dreams, or nightmares. His life began that afternoon.

 That summer he was walking away from the school building, carrying his books, some kid was speaking to him, taunting him, something – he wasn’t listening, his attention was caught by the people standing at the edge of the copse of trees. A black woman, a kid not much older than himself…or was he? He was shortish, wore glasses…nothing odd about them…except…

          …except that he, Neal, had a story book when he was a baby with a picture like that…just like that. Beautiful illustrations, he recalled. Two people standing at the edge of a wood, but it wasn’t a wood, it was fairy-land. In the story, they represented escape from the mundane, escape to adventure, escape to a family.

 To Neal, anything would seem like a good adventure right now. But he couldn’t just walk over and talk to strangers…yet they seemed, both of them, to be looking right at him as though waiting for him. He had the impression they had been standing like this for a while, perhaps he’d seen them before…

 When he’d walked in their direction, they had waited till he was close and then turned and walked away, between the trees. He’d slowed, but the boy had turned and glanced back, and without another thought, Neal had followed.

When they had stopped by a car, and turned to him, both smiling, he halted. He was about three paces away. His head told him this was a trap. People lured kids, they’d all been told. Offered them something, pretended to be friends of their parents. _**That**_ wouldn’t have worked with Neal!

 These two opened the car door and Neal walked up and got in. His head was still unsure, but his heart told him, _**Get in**._ So he did. They climbed in, too, the lady in the front – there was no doubt in Neal’s mind that she was a lady, though he hadn’t had much to do with well-mannered, gentle people – and the older boy in the back with him.

           “Hi, Neal,” the boy said, “you can call me Mozzie, and this is June.”

           “O-kay?” Neal answered hesitantly, encouraged that June hadn’t started the car. Surely when they snatched a kid the idea was to get out of the area as fast as possible?

           “Would you like to come with us?” asked June in soft, melodious tones.

           “Where?” he’d forced himself to ask, rather than just tell the truth: _**Yes!**_

           Mozzie chuckled a little. “Smart, you are. How about – anywhere and everywhere?”

           Neal turned to him and glared. “That’s a silly answer.”

           “Actually, Neal, Mozzie is right. We have no one single destination in time and space, but we have a journey and a goal and perhaps you’d like to help us?”

           “What?” Neal asked. “What’s the goal?”

           “Save the planet?” Mozzie grinned. Later, Neal discovered that Mozzie wasn’t always this ebullient, it was just that they’d found him, and Moz had been waiting for some time to find him.

           “Now, Mozzie,” June broke in, “that’s a little glorified. Neal, we have a plan to improve things that are going to get worse on Earth and it would be very difficult to do it alone. We need bright, unusual, talented people, and you would be very good. You are under no obligation to join us, and we will manage without you.”

           Neal was to learn that very clever trick of withdrawing the prize, but at this point he merely reacted to it. “I’d like to come with you, June, please.”

           They had taken him to what seemed to him to be a mansion, set in beautiful grounds, far from anywhere. There were a few others already there – Kate, a shy, pretty girl a few years younger than he was, June’s husband, Byron, slender and smart and smiling, Alex, a girl about his own age, who grinned wickedly at him and stole his pen.

 

          Neal felt out of his depth at first, but they fed him well, gave him nicer clothes than he’d ever worn and started teaching him things. Not like school. Useful things. Mozzie taught him maths and computer skills, including the by-passing of security systems. He didn’t understand some of it, but Moz said that was all right, the computers had to catch up, too, and laughed.

           Alex taught him sleight of hand, picking locks, cracking safes and various like skills and Byron taught him art, sketching, engraving, painting, sculpting, forging.

           They played games, memorizing lists of things, numbers, names. They played chess and bridge. They learned French and Italian and German, as well as mastering English properly.

           They played physical games, too, learning the basics of all the common sports. They also did what Neal would later think of as obstacle courses, climbing, running, becoming fit.

           They played with puzzles. They read. Most of it was fun and often they competed.

           Mozzie was pleased to have another boy, even younger and relatively inexperienced.

           They were taught how to fix cars – how to steal cars – how to do electrical wiring, plumbing, carpentry, all sorts of skills he’d thought one had to be an expert to tackle, but they were easy if one was careful. Neal loved the confidence and the feeling of self-reliance all this gave him!

           They all cooked and baked and ran the house. In the evenings, sometimes, Byron would play the piano and they would all sing along. Alex didn’t, but everyone else.

           Neal fell in love with Kate. He loved everyone, everyone was deeply fond of everyone else. But Kate was special. He never said he was in love with Kate. Kate knew. He sometimes thought Alex, smart, scornful Alex, knew. She never said, she just smiled. They never touched, he and Kate. Not for years.

           They went out sometimes, but always with changed appearance and they practised things – following people without getting caught, picking pockets and then replacing the stolen items.

           They all watched the news on television, especially the headlines, and it was a game to catch inconsistencies and lies. Sometimes the breaking news story would be suddenly altered radically before being released again, or an apparently important story would disappear altogether. They then listened to radio broadcasts from the countries or the states involved, especially community radio.

It wasn’t hard to see that the news was being doctored.

           “But why?” Neal asked, wanting to get back to his painting. It was his love, painting. He was good at almost everything, but he loved to create. Even copies. But especially his own work.

           “How would you control people, Neal?” Byron asked, sadly.

           “I wouldn’t,” Neal answered, promptly. He just wanted most people to leave him alone.

           Byron grinned a bit. “I will tell you that there are many people who want to control the rest of the population. So imagine you are one of them. How do you do it?”

           Neal drew a deep breath, imagined and said, “Make them think they aren’t being controlled.”

           “Good! Good! Now how do you make them think that, and how do you make them do what you want them to do?”

           “Tell them they are free, often,” Neal went on, considering, “and make them think it is to their benefit – or the benefit of others – to act in the way you want them to act. Tell them they have the best life on earth, the best systems, the best country.”

           “How do you make sure they don’t think for themselves?”

           “Um,” Neal paused. He couldn’t imagine not thinking for himself.

           “What other skills have you learned that might give you a clue?”

           “Oh, distract them…?”

           “How?”

           “With things that seem urgent and important. Give them problems that take up their time and energy. Make them think that things are fine, but also make it hard for them to find out the truth…”

          “But computers make getting the truth easier, don’t they?” Mozzie asked, quietly. “How do you get around that?”   .

           “Sell the story you want them to believe, make the fake look better, brighter, more obvious than the real: oh, that trick they used with the UFO report…get some well-dressed, white, older man who speaks well and who is supposed to be a scientist give the approved version, and get a loony-looking woman in wooden beads and hippy dress with flowers behind her ears to tell the story you want them to believe is a lot of hooey!”

           “I told you he’d get it,” Mozzie said, and Neal was pleased. Mozzie seldom praised anyone.

           “We’re working primarily in the United States, dear,” June told him. “Read the Tax Code, and Billions for the Bankers and there a few other books – The Creature from Jekyll Island, would you? Alex has all the relevant information.”

 The next day, at lunch, June asked, “What did you learn?”

           Neal swallowed his mouthful of food and said, “It is scary how easy it is, isn’t it? They always bring in large changes in, say, taxes in war times, making people feel unpatriotic if they question - ”

       “Create a problem, wait for a reaction or force one, offer the solution you want the people to accept,” Mozzie nodded. “Problem, reaction, solution.”

           Neal glanced at him and went on, “Then they brought in the present income tax as the War Tax more or less when they brought in the Federal Reserve Bank, which isn’t part of the federal government, it’s private, it isn’t a bank and has no reserves. Biggest Con! But it creates the money the government…or the people…have the right to create for themselves and lends it at interest to the country.

          “So instead of the government voting a million dollars to be created for a road – giving jobs in many sectors - it has to borrow a million, which turns the road neatly from an asset to a liability. And the interest is usurious.

          “They have to have the income tax to remove excess money from the system or hyperinflation would ensue. They create money out of nothing and put less out than needs to come back, set high limits on taxable money to begin with, but as they cause inflation, even average incomes become heavily taxable, because they don’t change the tax brackets as the money becomes worth less.

          “So the average family becomes poorer, have to work longer hours, try to get their children to university or tertiary education which is ridiculously expensive – especially considering the quality of a great deal of it! - because they think it will make them be able to live a better life, but that creates more debt…”

           “There’re a lot more taxes and unavoidable costs, too,” Alex nodded. “Drivers licenses used to be just for commercial drivers. Common Law said that everyone should have free access to the roads and highways, but commerce is under Admiralty Law, so anyone making money off roads – chauffeurs, commercial truck drivers, they had to have a license.

          “Then they tricked people into believing that it would be good to have a license to show that drivers were competent, just a nominal fee, who wouldn’t want that? – but it morphed into everyone having to register and pay and pay and pay. Pension funds and insurance. Permits for every little thing…”

          “And it’s one of the main ways they control people now, drivers licenses, know where they live,” Mozzie stuck in and Alex nodded and went on,

         “Fuel taxes and liquor taxes, on and on. They keep passing that sort of statute, eating away at people’s wealth, rights and freedoms. Then they tell everyone that they’re lazy, or inefficient, that it’s their fault. But they have lost control of their choices, their money.”

           “Which is their time, their energy, their dreams,” Byron murmured, sadly. “You’ve basically got the idea, Neal. We can go over details later. It isn’t pretty.”

           “Then they feel guilty, and keep their problems a secret from others, many of whom are suffering in silence as well…so they don’t organize resistance. And they have so little time and energy left. It’s truly horrible,” Neal nodded. “No wonder so many people are mean and drink too much and take drugs.”

           “My father told me,” June said, shaking her head, “that anyone who held onto their principles and morals would find that sooner or later the law has moved so that they are on the wrong side of it.”

           “And most people don’t know any of this?” Kate asked, softly. Everyone turned to look at her, she didn’t often speak.

           “No, Sweetie, they don’t,” Byron said. “I think many people know that something is wrong, but they can’t put their fingers on what. The education has been changed…you know the quote, ‘those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it?’ Do you know how little history is taught now, real history? Important things? Did you study how the science questions they ask in exams have changed to ones with less need for analytical thought?”

          They studied the educational system, the justice system, the medical system, the media. How things had changed since the USA had declared Independence. June and Byron were delighted that Neal picked up information so quickly. They paired him with Mozzie; they challenged each other.

 They learnt about weapons, swords, knives, guns of all sorts. How to care for them, how to use them. Neal didn’t mind shooting targets, stationary or moving. He couldn’t imagine shooting anything living. He didn’t tell anyone, but he felt sick just thinking about watching the light go out of something’s eyes.

           Neal and Kate learned to play the piano, and both were good. They played duets together. It was like making love, wrapped in melody.

 

It was all fun. Neal loved to learn.

 

Neal realized, at some point, that it was fun because they were learning this stuff here, behind strong walls. It wouldn’t be fun to be a victim of it all. It wouldn’t be fun at all.

 

There was an area that Neal did not excel. Advanced mathematics, where Mozzie tripped and bounced like a manic elf, delighting in every new possibility and probability, working in his spare time on some of the unsolved problems, taking leaps of understanding and leaving Neal far behind…that and computers. Programming. It just felt lifeless to him. Mozzie and Alex and Kate were far better at it.

          He had no desire to challenge them in this area. He wished he understood, sometimes, but something in him just didn’t. He was better than any of the others at most other things they learnt. Mozzie and Alex seemed to perhaps feel sorry for him, that he just didn’t get anything but the basics of programming.

           “You’re still much better than the average graduate, Neal,” Mozzie told him, comfortingly, which somehow made him feel worse!

 

So it was Mozzie, Kate and Alex who started working on the Flea. He didn’t pay much attention, until they told him that he needed to become a thief. He smiled. He was good at picking pockets, he was good at art forgery, check forging, forging bonds. He positively thrived on risk and pressure. He’d practised and Byron and even Mozzie had been effusive in their praise. This was something he could do!

           “We need you to become a very successful criminal, Neal,” Byron told him. “I could do it, but I’m not as young as I once was. This is not going to be fun all the time, sometimes you will be lonely. Sometimes, dear son, it will be very dangerous.”

           “Oh,” Neal said, thoughtfully. “I have to go away?”

           “Yes, I’m afraid so. This part of the plan is over, there’s not much more we can teach you, you have to keep learning for yourself. We’ve taught you to question, to learn.”

           “I – I’ll have to hurt people?” Neal hesitated.

           “No. Pick marks who are big enough. You’ve seen those little parasitic fishes? They go after big fish and nibble on their fins. If they went after little fish, the fish would die, but the big fish just find them annoying.”

           “Which is not to say that the big fish won’t turn and eat them if they aren’t smart and quick,” Mozzie told him, his eyes alight with concern for his friend. But he knew Neal was just the sort to pull this off. He’d do it if he could, but his chances of surviving were much lower. Neal had some sort of magic, a charisma. Even Alex, who was the barracuda of the their little shoal only nipped at Neal, mainly irritated because he was just so _**nice!**_

__

So the group all left the house and went out into the world, doing various things, working for cash when they could, otherwise doing things on the shady side of legal. The youngsters kept in careful touch, they didn’t see their mentors at all, had no word. Neal found his feet and, with Mozzie’s help on some jobs, he developed an impressive criminal résumé. It was important that he let some of these acts come to the ears of the authorities. Enough to needle them into watching him. Not enough evidence to arrest him. He enjoyed the whole dance. Every bit of it. At last he went to work for Adler and there was Kate…she took his breath away. He’d always loved her, but it had been a romantic, chivalrous love. Now she was a woman, and her big blue eyes melted his very soul.

           “Don’t get too involved with Kate, that’s not the mission. She’s just here as backup, Neal, should something happen to any of us. Don’t …” Mozzie hesitated. He’d never been one to let his heart rule his head, he’d seen too much catastrophe from that, but he knew enough to realize that Neal wouldn’t brook criticism of his idol. He said, helplessly, “It’s not what you’re here for, not what we’ve worked for. You need to concentrate. Don’t think of Kate…be _**careful!”**_

 Mozzie sent word to Alex and she came riding to the rescue, grinning that lop-sided, teasing grin. Kate was playing hard to get – _or something!_ Mozzie thought – and Alex moved in like the predator she was and stole Neal from her with ease. Planted some seeds of desire for a big haul - and other things - in his heart – and other things - and left. Mozzie was pleased, but Kate had grown up from the shy little girl – _or sly little girl,_ Moz thought, and whatever she’d thought of Neal before, she wasn’t going to let Alex take him without a fight. She swooped back in and hooked him.

Moz despaired.

 But those seeds had taken root and Neal foolishly let slip that he wanted what Alex had offered, at least in the way of the score, and Kate misjudged him. When she left him, he went to Europe and in and out of Alex’s company learned and grew and stole and teased all the big fish he could find. The whole team put word on the street of his brilliance.

 Eventually, word got back that the FBI had an agent on his case. They studied Peter Burke and decided he was perfect. Neal spent years wooing Agent Burke, teasing him as he’d teased so many rich people, girls, marks, touching lightly, withdrawing too quickly to be touched himself. He learnt about himself, about women, about people, about life. He saw that everything June and Byron had told him was true.

 He developed steely self-discipline and control, but to Mozzie’s pride he always looked as though he was carefree, impulsive and about eighteen. It was easy to overestimate his good looks and underestimate his smarts. Mozzie couldn’t imagine trying to do this work with Kate, who had the looks, or Alex who had looks and lots of smarts, but none of the charm of Caffrey. Neal truly liked people, was disappointed that so many of them had been hurt enough to become selfish or even vicious. Alex sneered at the people, their weaknesses - and at his sincerity. She didn’t have it, and didn’t bother to learn to pretend.

 He pulled off art heists so well that no-one knew of them. He was meticulous, from the paints and the brushwork to the canvas, the labels, the stamps. Nothing could be faulted. Mozzie insisted he fail and leave some breadcrumbs for Burke.

           “He’ll think you’re out of the game, Neal!”

 Neal started leaving origami flowers at crime scenes. Not just _**his**_ crime scenes. Other good ones, too. _Let’s not be predictable!_ He couldn’t bring himself to do less than his best.

 Alex thought they should all put aside lots of money for rainy days…or just go and live in the sunshine right now. They’d all worked hard and risked a lot! Why not just take what they had and create new identities and disappear?

           “We have a job to do – and you can, after a while, we don’t care, just not yet!” Mozzie told her over the burner phone he’d sent her. “Neal’s the important one!”

           “Oh, _ **Neal!”**_ she sneered. “Neal, and you with your program!”

           “You did a lot of work with me on it,” Mozzie conceded. “It’s a great program!”

           “A very small program! Very, very efficient and slender and beautiful!” she said, her long, elegant nails making shapes in the air Mozzie couldn’t see but could imagine. He shuddered a little. She always had a dark side, Alex! He’d never _**seen**_ her pull wings off flies….     But at least she could be trusted…in a pinch she always came through.

 

Kate was working more or less on her own, now. She seldom responded to them trying to make contact. She’d become involved with someone. Mozzie was always worried that Neal would jeopardize everything because they couldn’t find Kate, but Neal’s loyalty to June, Byron and Mozzie held.

 

Mozzie found that Neal had been – well, he called it courting Agent Burke. Mozzie called it taunting. Sending him cards and gifts. The origami flowers, each different.

           “What do you think you’re doing? He’s not a sweet fluffy bunny at a petting zoo! He’s got a gun, remember those? You’re a good shot, but you don’t like them – he’s just as good a shot and he does! He also doesn’t run alone…he’s with a large pack of hungry wolves, hyenas, coyotes and wild dogs!”

           “I want every edge I can get, Mozzie, when the time comes!”

           “Yeah, yeah – you understand people better than I do, I’ll give you that! But be careful!” Mozzie worried about the whole enterprise. So many things could go wrong, and most of the weight of that avalanche would fall upon his friend Neal. He didn’t want to lose Neal, didn’t want him to be a sacrifice to the cause…the chances of success were as slim as the sneaking, sweet-talking crazy fool sending birthday cards to FBI Agent Burke!

 Finally it was time. Neal made it obvious that he had returned to the USA and started being deliberately careless…and then the word on the street was that Kate had a storage unit. Mozzie and Neal looked at each other. This was it. It was clumsy and obvious and so clearly a trap.

           “May the Force be with you, not against you!” Mozzie joked, and uncharacteristically hugged Neal. “We have put in place as many safeguards as we can, you know we have! But it isn’t…we can’t…”

           “Moz, I know. Let’s just get this over with: the next bit is going to be rough.”

 

Neal went to the storage facility and met Kate. Her eyes were huge, there was a chance the FBI would arrest her, too, though she had left only the tiniest bits of bait. He could feel her trembling, they both could practically smell the law enforcement right outside the building, approaching, hemming them in. He kissed her, the first time in years, and his heart leapt.

           “I’ll visit you, if I can, Neal,” she whispered behind her hair, and the FBI broke in and Neal looked deeply into Peter Burke’s brown eyes for the first time, though they’d seen each other before. He held out his hand and Burke shook it, and he knew he’d accomplished something: there was a literal, visceral, limbic connection, just as he’d hoped.

 

Burke was at his trial as much as possible, and Neal nodded at him, his eyes smiling companionably, as though Burke, rather than the apparently incompetent defender, was his only friend. In the end, he was only convicted on the bond forgery, the rest was thrown out. He found out later that Burke had argued for leniency, said that Neal was young and totally non-violent. When the agent responsible for bringing in a defendant took that stance, the judicial system often responded favorably.

 

Still, four years seemed a very long time to someone as young and vital as Neal.

 

Neal didn’t know how June and Byron had done it, but though the sentence wasn’t fun, he wasn’t used to being cooped up, wasn’t used to having every choice made for him, wasn’t used to the roughness of the other inmates and most of the guards, he was always safe.

 He used his social skills and made friends. He could raise a joke in difficult situations. Most of the guards really liked him, he was well-spoken, soon gathered extensive information about their families, was always sympathetic and interested. He never failed to remind them about their wives’ birthdays or their son’s music exam or daughter’s soccer finals. He asked about their ailing parents or their pregnant pets. He made a surprising number of acquaintances, even friends, amongst the other inmates, learning about them, their particular skills, their strengths and weaknesses.

 He never asked why they left him alone, he never thanked them. His attitude was one of quiet confidence. But he also managed to get cigarettes and cell phones and chewing gum for those men who really needed their fix. Byron had paid off enough guards, and they were pleased to oblige. Again, though the corruption worked for Neal, it brought home how unjust the system was.

 He spent time far from the prison, often in the dead of night…sitting at a Paris café in the afternoon, watching the couples, hearing the music, smelling the coffee, tasting the pastries…riding a powerful wave to an Australian white beach…listening to Big Ben chime midnight with the soft rain clinging to his hair…dancing barefoot with Kate on the grass in the moonlight, starlight in her eyes…feeling June tucking him in and kissing his cheek when she thought he was asleep, catching just a whiff of her perfume. That same memory for detail that made him a great forger, a great conman, kept him sane.

 

Kate visited every week. The family had always had several secret codes, ways of passing information which wouldn’t be picked up by any but the most vigilant observer. One of the easiest ways was using a book code. Kate obviously had the  _Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged_ , also available in the library (how they’d found _**that**_ out, Neal never knew), so it was very easy to pass short messages with just a number of fingers on the side for the page, then the line, then the word.

 Mozzie could have accepted and sent much longer messages, but Kate didn’t have as good a memory.

 It was nearing the end of his sentence. He could almost smell the fresh, free air, knowing with a sinking heart that he would have to repeat it all…and then Kate told him that she was not coming again. It wasn’t difficult to give a convincing act of total dismay, near-panic. She messaged that Burke was now chasing the Dutchman, that they could use that, all he needed was to escape and let Burke find him.

 Neal, of course, had little idea of the plans in place. But he trusted his family completely, and the thrill of escaping, of doing the near-impossible and doing it quietly, without harming anyone made his blood tingle. He also hoped to have a little time with Kate. Enough to re-establish their bond.

 But when he got to her apartment the only person there was Mozzie, who saw his disappointment and shook his head.

           “She left, man. I couldn’t stop her. She just bolted, not knowing when the Feds would be here.”

           “B-but they’ll be _**hours!”**_ Neal said, and winced at the pain in his voice. He hadn’t thought he could still sound that young and lost. We-ell, unless he was intending to con someone by sounding lost and young.

           “That’s what I told her. She’s really spooked, Neal. There’s something going on…it isn’t just going to see you in prison, or seeing you arrested and tried – she’s totally stressed out, man.”

          “And I won’t be able to do anything,” Neal said, slowly. “Moz - ?”

           “I’ll do my best, Neal, but she’s acting pretty flighty. I’m not very good with …”

           “I know, but you have to, Moz! For me!”

           “I’ll do my best,” Mozzie repeated.

 

Neal tightened his jaw, put Kate out of his mind. He needed to know the plan.

 

          “It’s the Dutchman. He’s good, very good, and he’s been leading Burke a merry dance. He’d be as good as you if he had the support you have, but you’ll be better by the time you have all his experience. He’s older.

          “We’re going to feed you Intel so you can chum up to Burke. Burke’s like a dog with a bone, he gets obsessive. He wants the Dutchman more than he wanted you, I think. He likes to be in control, he doesn’t like to lose. Here’s the stuff you need to read.”

 Neal sat with his back against the wall and read everything, about the anklet, about the Dutchman – one Curtis Hagen – and about Peter Burke, things he hadn’t known before.

 Mozzie saw him reviewing the file on Hagen, much like the one Burke probably had, but Burke was missing a few details, like a photo and a name!   

          “What’s Hagen like, Moz? I’m not sure I like doing this, handing people over…these people are like _**us!**_ I have just experienced the hospitality of the government, and I was being looked after. I don’t – I really don’t want to _ **do**_ this. I didn’t know it would feel like this, like a betrayal.”

           “Let’s hope you can just take down a few, Neal. Look, chances are that you’ll get another four to six years. If we can make you appear really useful to this Fed, we’ll get you out and you can do the job. And yes, that usefulness will involve getting at least a few people arrested. Hopefully, they’ll be less than honorable. Look, Hagen isn’t normally violent. He doesn’t waste resources. But if someone gets in his way, he has no compunction about selling them out, or even something more…permanent.

          “You said it yourself, the system turns nice, ordinary people into mean, self-medicating, selfish people. That’s not just Mr. and Mrs. Average, and it’s not just those people who work for the Evil Empires, despite how we might feel about them. There are very few honorable crooks, gentleman thieves. Many try not to kill, it adds to their sentence and may get them executed. That doesn’t make them trustworthy or good in any way.

          “There _**are**_ some like us, some just making a living and staying out of the control of the system, but they are in the minority. Truly. Good people, I have tried to tell you before, really good people who will not sell out to fear or greed or expediency, they are few and far between in every walk of life, every race, every country, every profession. I’m sorry, Neal, but you have to see that!”

 “No, I’m not that naïve, Moz. It’s just an act, a persona. I know what’s out there in the world and I have been in prison, in close contact with a lot of sad, angry, bad, damaged men.”

 “Hopefully not too close.”

 Neal glanced over, but the reflections off his glasses hid Mozzie’s eyes. “No. Whatever you did, all of you, I was fine. _**Thank you**_. I saw what can happen to those without some protection. It still wasn’t …I endured it, okay?”

 Mozzie nodded, saddened. No-one should actually have to go to prison, he thought. He’d kill himself so fast if there was even a small chance. He had several ways in place at any time. “How’re you doing?”

 “Trying to see past all this to the end of the plan, or at least the end of my part in it. Trying to hold on to a dream of all of us on a desert island, or in a world that isn’t so stinking sad and _**evil!”**_

Mozzie just nodded again. “That’s what all this is for. Hopefully.”

 Neal went back and read everything through a second time. Then they sat, exchanging the occasional comment. Mozzie noticed that Neal didn’t ask about June, Alex or Byron, and he didn’t offer any information, even though Byron had passed away. Neal had expected to see Kate and her absence had thrown him for a while. He needed his head clear and his part bolted down. Normally, his ability to do what was needed wouldn’t have concerned Mozzie for a split second. But normally Neal hadn’t spent nearly four years incarcerated and treated like the rest of the criminal cattle. He didn’t know how badly he had been wounded, despite Neal’s brave words. And after all, Mozzie was successfully hiding things from him, too.

Eventually, when they both thought they couldn’t stand it any more, Moz’s burner phone rang. He answered it and nodded to Neal. “Took their time, didn’t they?”

 “Perhaps Burke wanted to give me time to make good my escape. What if he asks me what I’ve been doing, sitting here for hours?”

 “Oh, you’ve been mooning over your lost love. He’s a Fed, Neal. He’s not stupid, but to him you’re an enigma, a man who doesn’t believe in The System. And if this little trick doesn’t work out, we’ll have you out in about five months. We aren’t leaving you there.”

 “Waste of a lot of work…”

 “Yeah, there’ll be other plans. You know us! Better go!” Mozzie picked up the bag with all the information, and they quickly checked around…just a few odds and ends left by Kate, the old bottle and Neal. Mozzie patted Neal on the shoulder and watched as Neal slumped over, drooping against the wall, holding the bottle. He left, wishing he didn’t have to…but there was a plan, and they had to follow the plan. He didn’t say it, but his heart swelled with pride in his friend.

As he walked down the alley and over the road and away from the scene, multiple cars with sirens wailing hissed up like a flight of malevolent, mechanical dragons, converging on the prince. Mozzie felt a little sick. The prince – and he was charming – was just going to give himself to them without a fight.

 

As it happened, Agent Burke didn’t go in guns blazing, with all his thugs in attendance, throwing Neal to the floor and trussing him like a bird for the roaster, ridding themselves of life’s frustrations by hurting this infuriating, now helpless guy, just a little. He went in alone, quietly, and Neal felt a lifting of his heart.

 They spoke, courteously, not like a criminal and a cop. Burke was somewhat sympathetic, while obviously believing he was completely daft. They could even chuckle together about the awful regulation suit. He got to his feet and couldn’t quite believe his eyes…the security strip for the Canadian hundred! Right there on Burke’s shoulder! It was one of several jobs Hagen was running, and Burke had walked in, all alone, and handed it to him. Couldn’t be better if it had a bow tied around it!

 He saw the flash of delight in Burke’s eyes, he saw that spark of …pride? …and held onto that, even as he heard the booted feet of the black-suited storm troopers approaching. He asked for a meeting, insisting, and he knew Burke watched him being cuffed and marched out with something akin to regret. He hoped it would be enough.

 

At the meeting, when Burke almost jeered at his foolishness in thinking he could get some sort of work release, Neal felt his heart teeter on the edge of despair, but he wouldn’t let it go over! He wouldn’t! He held on to the fact that Burke hadn’t just walked out, he had patted his shoulder. It might have been a patronizing pat, but it was physical contact, and most lawmen wouldn’t contaminate themselves by touching a convict.

 

However, as the weeks turned into months, it looked as though he had misjudged their link and that he was going to have to get out of prison some other way…and then he was told he had a visitor. For just a split second, he thought it might be Kate. He was hurt and angry, for just a second more, to see Agent Burke. But then – then he realized. Burke needed him. Burke hadn’t got any closer to the elusive Dutchman! He hid the name and face away in the deep recesses of his mind, and soon he was walking out of the prison.

 He wasn’t scared, though he looked – well, nervous. He was seething internally. Somehow, out here, under the open sky, he felt more controlled, more trapped, than he had in his cell. That ugly, uncomfortable piece of plastic, that would monitor his every move, relay his exact position to anyone with access and who wanted to watch him. _They think they own me!_

 Burke also wasn’t exactly welcoming. He started with a lecture, and Neal was going to become very weary of Burke’s love of preaching self-righteously to his captive audience of one.

 What shocked Neal rigid was the motel that the Bureau thought was reasonable accommodations! He tasted bile. This was a punishment for being useful to them? This was so disgusting…the bed-bugs, the cockroaches, the filth, the _**stink**_. Prison had been better by far, and somehow the fact that New York, in all her glory, throbbed and glittered outside the doors made it all the more deplorable. He asked about his clothes, and Burke smirked, telling him about a thrift store within his radius. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to buy clothes _**with.**_

 And, “Cowboy up! If you can find somewhere better for the same money, take it!” – knowing, taking apparent joy in the fact that the chance of Neal finding any accommodations in New York for $700, let alone with a felony conviction blinking on his ankle, was nil. Or perhaps Burke was just angry because this was such an awful option and he was forced to leave Neal there? Neal tried to quiet his anger with this thought…but Burke could have at least said something apologetic, sympathetic, if that was the case.

 Then Burke left, as though showing Neal that he, a law-abiding man, _**could**_ leave.

 Neal moved his foot thoughtfully, feeling the anklet, the only thing standing between him and freedom. He could cut it and run. He wasn’t a child, he wasn’t young in the ways of the world. He had several go-bags in New York City and it’s environs alone, he could change his appearance completely and be gone before they could react. He had stashes of money and more go bags all over the world, even places the Family didn’t know he’d been. It would hurt Burke, no question, but at present Neal wasn’t particularly worried about Agent Smirking Burke!

 He stood in the room appointed to him, looked at the dog in possession of the bed – he was braver than Neal! Neal would go outside and sleep on the sidewalk, rather! – and wondered where to put the files. He didn’t want lice or bedbugs getting to him from them either! He checked the bath and left them there. It wasn’t very nice, but better than the bed or the floor. He wondered if Moz would be around, and he could bum some cash and buy a tarp and put that down, bleach the bathroom…. _Yeah, we can manage this! And insecticide! Pepper to discourage the dog. Pity none of my caches are close enough. Two miles is small. But Moz won’t disappear, he’ll find some way of being in touch. Bloody bastard, Burke! Wish I could force him to sleep here. Hmmm…._

Neal felt better, planning some hideous revenge, such as shackling Burke naked to that bed and letting the dog and it’s fleas jump on him, and the bedbugs and lice chew on him… he grinned at himself. He really wasn’t at all good at violence, even imagined!

 He had to get out of the room, or he’d go mad. And Mozzie wouldn’t come _**near**_ this place, not without a full hazmat suit. Neal grinned again, imagining Mozzie in a hazmat suit! He probably owned one, or perhaps one in each of his safe houses around the world!

 Neal walked along, feeling ashamed of how he looked, keeping a weather eye open for Mozzie, Alex, police, Feds and, though this was pure wishful thinking, Kate. He found the thrift store that Burke had told him about.

 _Well, in this, Burke probably isn’t being deliberately nasty! This is probably where he buys his clothes!_ Neal thought as he pulled the hangers over, one by one. There was very little choice, let alone in his size. It was all poor quality, some mended badly, some frayed. _He’s just going to get such a laugh out of seeing me dressed like a homeless person, and smelling like one, too, after sleeping in that motel. I_ ** _have_** _to get some bleach! Where can I steal bleach around here?_

Then he saw June. It had been so many years! She glanced over, but obviously he was supposed to be a stranger to her. But those clothes…she’d brought him clothes! Lovely, lovely clothes!

 He went over on the pretext of looking through the suits she’d brought. They made it very clear to anyone watching, and the saleswoman in case they needed a witness, that they were strangers. But they telegraphed love and hope and joy to each other with their eyes. It took all Neal’s discipline not to drop everything and hug her! – that and the fact that he wasn’t clean. He been in the air in that motel! She’d given these suits to the thrift store already, but told him she had a lot more!

 When she looked at him, her eyes wide and innocent and told him that her place ‘wasn’t far’, he nearly kissed her, right there! _Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!_

 He walked her to a classy Jag, nodded to the chauffeur, someone he didn’t know, who opened the door for June.

 “No, dear lady, I am not going to get in your lovely car!” he said to her. “Give me the address, please, and I’ll meet you there.”

 June looked up into his implacable blue eyes. “What do you want me to do, hose you down in the yard before you come in the door?”

 “Good idea,” he said, putting his hands in the pockets of his coat. “Especially if you have access to piped super-heated steam!

          “I have to go and pick up my homework and leave a note - ” his face lightened a bit as he thought of that note! “ – for my handler, Agent Burke.”

           “If you’re that worried about it, dear,” June said, grinning impishly, “here! Take Alfred, who has a credit card. Get a cab, go and buy clothes and let him carry them, go to a _ **very**_ nice hotel and rent a room and shower as often as you need to, dress and then come to my place. Then you can shower again, we can burn the clothes with much ceremony, and Alfred can buy and burn the cab, too, if you’d like. And even the nice hotel, if you absolutely insist!

                    “I’ll drive myself back.”

           Neal threw back his head and laughed. He used their finger-language to say, “You know my friend Mozzie, don’t you!

          “The motel is disgusting!”

           June went on, “Or you can just get in, not touch anything more than you need, and Alfred can just disinfect the seat where you have sat and the carpets where your feet have been.”

           “Sorry. I’ll just get in…can we go past the motel? You might want to drive on the opposite side of the street and I’ll jay-walk over!”

           “And break the law, dear?” June asked, making him laugh again. He slid in as carefully as he could, and Alfred passed him a notepad and pen.

           He wasn’t Mozzie, but the thought of actually being clean, seeing June looking like the lady she’d always been, was somehow making Neal hyper aware of his state. His state in many ways. He didn’t feel better until he had showered and shaved in June’s spare bathroom, thanking all the divinity that she had a wonderful supply of piping hot water, had cleaned the shower, dressed in lovely pants and a soft sweater, shoes that fit him perfectly, and was sitting down being served by a maid – a _**maid!**_ – and partaking of what was a late tea with June.

 He waited till they were alone. “Are we safe, dear Lady?”

          “Bugs? In my house? Not any type of them, dear! I had Alfred spray all your files with insecticide and disinfectant, just in case! And all your old clothes that you put in that bag are going to be at the city dump very soon.”

 Neal sat back, closed his eyes and truly relaxed for the first time in – how many years? He didn’t know. He opened his eyes to see the concern on June’s face.

           “I’m so sorry, dear, that you had to do all this,” she said. “We did try and break in, you know, but that’s how Byron nearly got caught the second time.”

           “Where is Byron, and the rest?” Neal asked.

           A shadow crossed June’s face. “I told you in the thrift store, dear, and it was the truth. Byron died, rather suddenly, I’m afraid. Years ago, now – just after you were arrested.”

           Neal felt his face drain. “Byron’s gone?”

           June nodded. “He didn’t suffer, dear.”

           Neal found that he’d had his emotions under fierce control for too long. He wanted to cry, the news demanded that he cry. But he literally couldn’t, though his throat closed painfully. “I’m so sorry, June.”

           “I know, dear. But we’ll get through it, together. He loved you, you know. You couldn’t be more of a son to us than if you truly were our own blood. He always worried that we were sacrificing you, your youth, your innocence.”

           Neal hesitated. There was no way he could truthfully tell her it hadn’t been a sacrifice. He never lied to June, hadn’t to Byron, hadn’t to Mozzie or Kate. He had to lie to Alex, it was a survival necessity! But not about important things. “Worth it, I hope!” he grinned at her.

           She nodded. “We all hope!”

           He sat forward. “I cannot tell you how relieved I was to see you at the store. How did you know where I’d be – put.” His voice held disdain.

           “The Fed’s use that motel, it’s cheap. One of their…” June realized that Neal was now ‘one of their…’ as well, and sought for the right word, Neal supplied, “assets,” and she nodded and went on, “runs the place, as you saw. We set ourselves up here, backdated everything so records show we’ve lived here since the flood. The back-story is secure. You know Moz and Alex and computers.

          “We had a girl in there, waiting for you to show, that’s how we knew that Burke had told you to visit the thrift store. Since he’d left you nothing much to wear and the surroundings weren’t in themselves entrancing, it wasn’t hard to deduce you’d be there soon, so I…um…lurked!”

           “I actually can’t believe such places exist,” Neal said. “The world, as you told me, is full of evil, filth and corruption and that proves it!”

           “You’re joking, but it’s true. Millions of children starving, millions infected with AIDS, child prostitution…people desperate in all countries of the world that I know of, Neal.”

           “So it wasn’t only my innocence, it was my ignorance, and you didn’t sacrifice it, love. I jettisoned it willingly.”

 

          When Neal saw the ‘apartment’ June had created for him, he stood in silence, and was surprised to feel tears creeping down his face. The walk-in closet with everything he’d ever need, the welcoming bed, all the secret hiding places, the gorgeous view! June hugged him and he whispered, “I couldn’t cry for Byron, and I’m crying for my lovely rooms! I have become as selfish as the rest, June!”

           “No, dear. You are touched to remember that we care, and how much we care!

          “Do you think your pet Fed is truly going to believe that you and my ex-husband were almost of an exact size? If they check records, he certainly isn’t – taller, slightly broader, feet two sizes bigger. But there’s no reason to check, I don’t think. And a brief glance at a photo won’t show the differences. I’ve only got photos of him around here that emphasize the similarities. We’ll say that I’m having the suits altered slightly, that you are more slender.”

           “Hopefully we’ll be too busy chasing the Dutchman for Burke to be concerned about my shoe-size…or your ex husband’s shoe-size, anyway, he already knows mine!”

           They walked out onto the balcony. “Who here knows, June?”

           “No-one. Let’s put it this way, I wouldn’t go telling anyone anything but our cover story. You know my little grand-daughter, Cindy? Well, she isn’t that little any more! Grown into a beautiful young woman. But she’s been tainted by her mother, sadly. But she likes to visit here. She will be pleasant to you because she knows that for some reason I care very much for you, and she certainly will do nothing to jeopardize her inheritance! She’s not a bad girl, just unaware, Neal.”

           Neal sparkled at her. “Beautiful, huh? Will she play a game with me?”

           “Tomorrow, when Burke comes to pick you up?” June chuckled. “Oh, I think we can pull something off! Let’s stick it to the Feds, dear!”

           Neal slept deeply, and had to be roused by the maid in time to set the stage, which they did with great relish! June hurried down when the chauffeur called her to say that ‘a man in a bad suit’ had arrived.

           “Places, places everyone!” June said, clapping her hands sharply.

 

          The next half-hour lived in Neal’s heart and mind, a touch-stone to keep him sane and make him smile when things got too bad over the next few years. Whenever Burke lectured him, when he was treated like some sort of contagion by other agents, when he was told that he’d never change, that he was untrustworthy, a criminal, a thief, a liar (as though they and all their superiors weren’t!), he always remembered watching Peter on the closed-circuit television in his room as he scratched his shoes on the mat, looked like a tradesman come to the front door instead of the back, awkward as he could possibly be. He looked anything _**but**_ white collar!

           He was carefully hidden behind a newspaper when Burke made it to the balcony. But he’d cut a hole in one photograph so he could enjoy to the fullest Burke’s disbelief and loathing at his new surroundings, his silk pajamas and robe, the smell of the best care products on his ultra clean hair and skin!

           When Burke saw Cindy, having smirked, last-resort fashion at Neal having to ‘baby-sit’, and the diaphanous silk robe obligingly floated on the light breeze, making her appear an angel of beauty in the morning light, only Neal’s long training kept him from laughing out loud.

           Peter sat, once he’d ordered Neal to change, and Neal watched through the gap in the curtains as he shrugged on his crisp shirt, pulled on socks, pants, everything of the finest, stuff that Burke wouldn’t buy even if he could and even if he knew where to go to do so! He watched till June happily told him that ‘her Byron’ had also been a felon. Burke could hardly swallow that, even chased down with perfect coffee!

           Neal bounced down the stairs, almost walking on air. He felt himself for the first time since before the arrest. He played with the hat and taunted Burke in truth. There was much less good-will after being left at that disgusting hole. Burke couldn’t help but lecture again, hating to see Neal so happy. Neal deflected and ignored and almost – almost - felt sorry for Burke by the time they got to the airport.

_Of course, it’d probably go better for me if I was looking down-at-the-heel, living in a slum-apartment, scratching in my hair for nits and begging for a few dollars for lunch money! Then he could feel sorry for me and feel big about helping me out. If I wasn’t tempted to commit suicide, it might go better for me! As it is, I am going to enjoy anything I can._

          Neal liked Diana as soon as they met. She made some snarky remark about getting his own coffee, but otherwise it was obvious she was a lady. Tough, intelligent, beautiful. Pity she was on the wrong side, really. But fun to work with for a time.

           He was surprised to find that he enjoyed the work. It was the same as at home, working out puzzles with other intelligent people, trying to help them or out-do them. Jones was nice, open, even Burke stopped being a jerk while working.

           Even if he stole rubber band balls as he went past.

           The next morning, he’d rather have stayed late at June’s, but he needed to ingratiate himself with Burke further, and that meant getting the wife on board. That wasn’t likely to be difficult. She had class, Elizabeth Burke, nee Mitchell, and they had many interests in common. And hey, she was beautiful and he could charm a high per cent age of men, and almost any woman. Especially the smart ones!

 

          She let him in, a little startled to see who was standing deferentially, hat-in-hand on the paving stones at the bottom of her front stairs (less intimidating down there) and he put her at ease and made friends with Satchmo. He had her sit down next to him (the light from the window was better there!) and was showing her the bond before Burke came barreling down the stairs about to go get the bad guy…it was just too perfect to see his face when they both looked up simultaneously, shoulders and hips touching. He sincerely wished he could have given Elizabeth a big hug for playing along so nicely. It would probably have given Burke a seizure of some sort and put the whole long con in jeopardy, but – _**worth it!**_

           Especially as Elizabeth was quite darling, and sexy as hell with it!

           What was she doing with Burke?

 

          The whole job _**was**_ teetering dangerously when Burke told him to ‘read the warrant law’   - he might go back to prison if they couldn’t catch the Dutchman. They had so little time. Of course, though Burke thought he knew him, he had no idea of who Neal really was, and had suggested he read the huge book sarcastically, the subtext being: ‘My life is controlled by lots and lots of laws I have to know, unlike your carefree existence, oh ye of the criminal classes!’

           So when Neal read the thing and used it, and saved the day, he was surprised to see Burke’s expression. He was truly thrilled – of course, they’d closed a case that would make him famous, and he loved catching bad guys anyway _ **and**_ they recovered the original bond – but his expression softened towards Neal, he looked proud.

  _Of course, he probably looked proud when he taught Satchmo to sit, too!_

          Neal played the carefree charmer, did good work and indeed helped take down bad guys who just cluttered up the streets and gave criminals in general a bad name. Men who killed out of lust, greed, fear or revenge. Bad guys. After all, they were in competition with him and his Family, for art or bonds or gentler crimes! He and Burke taunted each other, and teased each other but Burke could also be quite cruel. Neal soon came to realize that at least some of it was unthinking. Burke really wasn’t that good with people, and felt intimidated by Neal’s brilliance and social ease. To his horror, Neal started to feel a little sorry for Peter, a little protective of the big lug.

_And when did I actually start thinking of him as ‘Peter’?_

_He’s not a bunny in a petting zoo. He’s dangerous. And he could be playing me, luring me into liking him…nah, surely not. I did it to him ! Better assume that’s it. Safer._

          With a haven at June’s, swept for bugs every evening, Neal at least had a place to relax, to speak freely with June and Mozzie. He heard the rest of the plan.

           “We need you to put a bug on the FBI computers,” Mozzie told him.

           “Hey? This was all for that? Why not just break into the Burkes’ – or any Suit’s place – and plant it on their home computer, or phone or something? Even I know that when they connect - ”

           “Neal, you don’t know. You never did learn all that much. We would have tried to break into the Fed buildings again, but there aren’t that many of us. Byron got caught because of that, it isn’t easy. Once you’ve built up some trust, and know the layout, you can get to the right computer and plant a bug.”

           “Couldn’t you have hacked it? And why won’t they pick it up? Surely - ”

           “Just do as we tell you, okay? Trust us! They won’t know it’s there. It isn’t like a virus you get when you open the wrong email attachment! It’s _**elegant!”**_ Mozzie used Alex’s word. “Perfectly designed for it’s purpose. It’s also tiny, hence – Flea.”

           “So that’s not short for Federal Law Enforcement Annihilation?” Neal asked. “I often wondered!”

           “Well, it could be, but we don’t want to do away with all law enforcement, actually,” June said, in her soft voice.

           “Why not?” Neal demanded, snacking on some fresh Brazil nuts.

           “Well, what fun would there be for us if we did?” Mozzie asked, puzzled. Neal grinned.

           “We’re not against policemen and agents catching murderers, rapists and kidnappers, Neal,” June pointed out.

           Mozzie went on, “No, we just called it the Flea because it’s so very streamlined and small. Most programmers build bulky programs. Bloated. Not us! And it can jump effectively from device to device, once it is behind the correct security wall, with no-one noticing, and scurry around without people seeing it. Ours doesn’t even make people want to scratch, therefore it is a more efficient parasite than real fleas!

          “And it’s going to go and sit on all the other parasites out there…’little fleas have lesser fleas upon their backs to bite ‘em!’

          “We were a little young for acronyms when we started on it.”

           “And what does it do?”

           “Absolutely nothing. It lies low, doing nothing, unseen by anything and everything.”

           “Oh, good!” Neal snarked.

           Mozzie suddenly went off on a tack – not an uncommon occurrence. “Do you remember why Constantinople fell?”

           “Um…it wasn’t a computer bug, if I remember!”

           “Plague. Rats brought the bubonic plague. They were trading with everywhere, and buying grain, and with the grain came rats. Now no-one knows why, exactly, but the popular theory is that bubonic plague, lying dormant in areas around the grain growing belts of North Africa, became active. There is speculation that it was a cooling period after a super volcano erupted in Central America, though I never found out why that would get it to become active.”

           “More likely the cool period caused people not to have access to good quality fresh food and the cold would also cause people to cuddle together for warmth, increasing contamination and in addition, depress their immune systems – especially if they were not getting sufficient sunlight!” Neal said, sitting forward. “So even if the plague wasn’t more aggressive, it might have gained a foothold where before their systems could have fought it off. After all, not everyone who caught it died of the plague, even once it became a respiratory infection, so it just had to inhabit enough sickly people for it to spread! The emperor, with all the best care and the good food survived it!”

           Mozzie grinned at June. “We are a good team!”

           “You always were, especially the two of you!” she smiled, and Neal glowed under her proud glance, just as he had under Burke’s.

  _Watch it, Neal – that’s a need, a weakness that can be exploited!_

           “So we send the fleas around the world. FBI interacts with all the other LEOs, all the other international organizations, all the other governments, sooner or later. Kevin Bacon style. The fleas don’t stay. They leave a much, much smaller parasite behind them. Like the plague. Dormant. At last the fleas are all dead. But the plague, designed to mutate to self-correct for new computer systems and codes, secrete themselves carefully everywhere.”

           “And then?”

           “Well, you realize that this isn’t going to happen over-night, Neal. And we may never even activate it. But if things get too bad, if the secrecy and the control and the corruption all over the world gets so bad that only the very top echelons – those who feel they are the elite – can survive decently, if nothing is done to help the starving, if the working poor become the norm, if nothing is done to stop pollution, dangerous drugs for huge profits, usury, everything we learnt about – we can be the super-volcano, if you will.”

           “And - ?”

           “It’s designed to make everything transparent to everyone, to expose everything…all the corruption, all the drugs sold even after the tests showed dangerous side effects, all the bank CEO’s getting huge bonuses when their investors were devastated by their actions.

          “It will expose how the government’s actions – and this will work better here – have gone against the Constitution and the Bill of Rights - but it’s self-rectifying and will do the same everywhere to a greater or lesser degree. It will pull the power from the people at the top who have sold their souls…made dirty deals, used people to make money.

          “It will do away with every – what did you call them? – distraction! No Olympics, no sports, no celebrity garbage. People will have to look at what’s being shown to them. Then, if the public clamor for the hockey game and corruption and the tedium of their lives, they can have them!”

           “And we go to an island somewhere?” There was a note of desperate longing in his voice.

         “We will. Our own island, even if it’s in the middle of Beijing or New York! But we can be free. We have several alternatives set up.”

           “People have been duped, Neal! They have no way of knowing the truth. We just believe that everyone should have a free choice – full disclosure,” June told him.

           “Mozzie, this sounds like a very complex program that has to do huge things. Has it any chance of working?”

           “Alex and I – and Kate, for much of the time – worked on it, made it as strong and small as we could. We ran innumerable simulations. It’s a little like a box of tiny Lego blocks with a mission. It can create what it needs once it is activated, depending on the …situation in which it finds itself.”

           “It sounds impossible, when I think what it’s up against!”

           “The world systems have become big, it’s true. Big and engorged and complex and full of mistakes and weaknesses. Look at 2007 with the subprime mortgage crisis, followed by the 2008 banking debacle…it looked so big and solid, didn’t it? ‘Safe as the Bank of England’ used to be a metaphor…not any more! Something big and unstable can be tipped with a very small force, dragging all the corruption down with it.”

           “It will take time?”

           “Yes, for the fleas to move into every little crevice and wait.”  
        

  “But I could leave as soon as I get it on the first machine?”

           “Better if you stayed, if you can stand being the slave of your Burkenator for a while. In case we need you there for some alteration or glitch. I’m sorry, Neal, you are having the worst of all of it!”

           “It’s all right. Some of it is fun! Many of the agents would be just like us with more knowledge! And they definitely prefer to catch **evil** men, those who hurt others. Peter’s not a bad man, you know. Just – damaged. Stunted. If he’d been recruited by you, June, as a teenager, he would have been a very good friend and ally.”

           Mozzie nodded, but he didn’t really understand, Neal thought. June did, a little more. Mozzie had always been free. Neal was much free-er than Peter had ever been, even after more than four years in prison.

           “It’s a compliment, in a way,” June said. “We collected a few of you, and all of you have done invaluable work. But we all decided that you had the best chance to make this work and survive, survive the physical and emotional and mental abuse of this whole program.”

           Neal looked over at her, and she wondered if he ever let Burke, or anyone other than her, see that look, the solemn, clear-sighted adult in a world of wool-blinded children. She felt a tug on her heart that she couldn’t hide, and looked away.

           “I am a survivor,” Neal said, simply. “You made me that. They can kill my body, but that’s nothing to worry about. It goes the way of all flesh. But they can never take me away from me, because _**you**_ gave me to me.”

           June glanced up, and Mozzie joked, “Silver-tongued poet! Luckily, Neal, we know exactly what you mean. It hasn’t been easy on any of us, especially you, but we’re still here – June, Alex, you and me. Byron’s here in spirit, right behind us all the way! And we’ll make it up to you, somehow.”

           “Only Kate seems lost,” June mourned. “I don’t know who she’s become entangled with, she won’t come to us. I’m not sure if she’s frightened for us or of us!”

           “We’ll keep trying, Neal,” Mozzie said to him, “to save Kate.”

 

           When the whole Fowler debacle happened, Neal played him, trying to find out the end-game. Alex nearly wrecked things, thinking to go for her freedom, but she proved her love and loyalty, too, and returned. Mozzie thought that perhaps she wasn’t as immune to Caffrey’s charm, wasn’t as scornful of his goodness as she had always pretended.

          When Fowler offered both him and Kate a new life, Neal jumped at it. It was a way of getting Kate to safety, and he would know who she was and where she was when the con was over. He would have to come back to Peter, but he just needed to get to her, get her new identity and where she was going. Then he’d return to Peter and get goodwill points for doing so.

           Then the plane blew up, and no-one was going to be saving Kate. It nearly derailed all their plans, set Neal on another course for a time, but Neal was made of stronger stuff…if not for himself, then the rest of the Family, who had worked very hard for him to be in the right place. It took a Herculean effort, but he finally shrugged off her death and went forward.

 

          Over the months, Neal gained the trust of many of the agents in the Bureau. It puzzled him how very stupid they were at times. They had all their security in place, their cameras and guns and surveillance, guards and locks, technicians and computer experts. Perhaps that made them over-confident. They also believed that he was getting something out of being a CI. Not just being out of jail. Some stability or something. Neal couldn’t think why they thought that way, but then, they were government employees.

           After all his careful sneaking around, his chance came, ironically, at a symposium of agents learning about security. He was treated as a child – not an agent, no special training, just an artist with an eye for detail and color that had been convicted of forging pretty bonds. His apparent youth, light-heartedness and even his retro-clothing helped. They disregarded him. He was there, trusted to a certain extent, but definitely not one of them. Burke’s Service Animal. Not violent. Not trained. Not An Agent. Not dangerous.

           Of all those in attendance, only Peter had any idea of the larger boundaries of his abilities, and Peter felt safe that Neal wouldn’t try anything stupid in such smart, able company. He also had no idea that Neal was any danger in relation to computers. He had never shown any interest or aptitude for complex programming or hacking, after all.

           Many of the highest ranking agents brought their laptops to stay in touch, and it was easy to create a diversion – Neal tipped over a coffee urn just before a break, and though most snapped their machines closed, two left them to run to the commotion. Neal , coming in the far door, inserted the thumb drive, waited thirty seconds, and withdrew it. Then, since no-one seemed interested, he did it to the other one.

           He trusted Mozzie that no-one would notice the program on the machines, he trusted that the information had retroactively been wiped from the drive he now carried, but he also made sure he was nowhere near the now infected laptops.

           He held his breath for a few days, but nothing happened. No-one issued startled commands about their electronic security being breached. No-one said it had happened at the symposium. No-one threw him to the floor and slapped hand-cuffs on him.

           Mozzie and June rejoiced. “Told you, mon frère!” Mozzie grinned over another glass of red. “I pinged it, it’s there, spreading. Well done.”

           Then Neal just had to wait out his time.

           He became very fond of Elizabeth, and, in a strange way, he also found a great deal to admire and love in Peter. Considering Peter’s incredible disadvantages in life, he was a strong, good man. Noble, even. He would never let anyone physically hurt Neal if he could help it, and without thought threw himself into harm’s way to prevent _**anyone**_ getting hurt, if he could. Yet still he could be verbally abusive, just plain mean, burying barbs in Neal’s flesh that after a while Neal managed to ignore. Mostly. _Peter can’t help it. Perhaps he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it. Perhaps he has the hide of a hippopotamus himself, or was taunted as a child._

           Elizabeth was much more open than her husband. She could usually see right from wrong, as opposed to legal and illegal which was his only yardstick.

           Neal found her a wonderful ally and a friend for a time, and felt himself growing protective of both of them. Peter had invisible shackles on his own feet, and the fact that all _**he**_ saw was Neal’s anklet made him horribly vulnerable to corruption within the system.

           It sometimes seemed to Neal that Peter was like a baby wandering through a tropical jungle, all unaware of snakes and spiders and poisonous plants that could kill him at any moment. Yet Peter, the dear, bumbling fool, spent a lot of time trying to rehabilitate Neal – into his own idiotic blindness! – and to protect him and show him the ‘perfect life’ he could have. He convinced himself that Neal wanted the ‘picket fence’ existence – Neal, who had never had any fences he hadn’t chosen to endure for a time!

           Neal didn’t want their limited, bonsai-ed life, paying taxes and pensions for the hope of bare survival later in their senior years, paying off a huge mortgage, trusting the stock exchange via mutual funds and the government, no matter how often politicians lied in public! - seeing a fraction of the truth (he knew he only saw some of it, but it was a far larger fraction!) He wished he could free them. He was deeply sorry for them.

           At least both Peter and Elizabeth loved their work.

           What Neal did envy was their love for each other. And sometimes, though he truly believed that to be so blind to dangers in their lives put them at great risk, he would have liked to be so unaware of things going on in the world that he could actually be bothered about which team won a game, even a playoff of something or another!

           So he walked along, often one step behind Peter so he could keep an eye on him, actively helping him catch ‘bad men’ and just as actively leading him on false trails if he was after a man who broke the law but never people’s fingers, developing a deeper love for the two of them, wondering how he could help them when their clay gods shattered.

           Neal had also come to really love and respect Diana. She was the FBI agent who seemed most real, least programmed by the system. He loved her and if she hadn’t been gay…well, she was. But he trusted her in a way he couldn’t trust Peter. She looked through his façade…he let her see past the first level of masks …and respected him, appreciated him. Jones was a little too enraptured with Peter and Peter’s values, but a good, trustworthy friend to his peers. He would never see Neal as one.

           Then Peter (and Diana) risked careers to help get the Raphael to Sara, and again when Kramer came for Neal by warning him.

           To Neal’s amazement, even after all that, Peter couldn’t break out of his little box, seeing The Law as unfailing, at least over the long term. And therefore, by extension, Neal was the failure.

           He didn’t _**have**_ to be, he’d been given this wonderful chance - he _**chose**_ to be!

           Peter knew, deep down, that he hadn’t had any arguments to lure Neal to his side, philosophically speaking, though Neal loved him and he knew that, too. He tried to shake Neal from his position by yelling, in fury and frustration, “You’re a criminal! You’re a liar! I can’t trust you!” even when Neal had just shown that, if he couldn’t be trusted not to pocket some rare valuable artifact left lying around unprotected (and therefore surely unappreciated!), he’d risk his very life to save Peter and Elizabeth, now that he’d completed his part of the Family’s plan and was no longer indispensible to them. Elizabeth, understandably concerned about Peter, also had no thought to spare for the man who kept him out of prison.

           There wasn’t much more Neal could offer than his love and his life, since he wasn’t prepared to give up his principles, so he gently withdrew. It hurt. But he’d lost Kate and survived. Sometimes the score just wasn’t attainable, and understanding that was probably the most important aspect of being a successful criminal.       

                     _Or a successful anything,_ Neal thought.

           Peter’s attitude to Rachel hurt him almost more than anything else. She’d been beautiful, Rebecca, the perfect woman for Neal, of course. She was good at what she did. Peter didn’t stop to consider that Neal desperately needed affection from someone his own age. Alex, having been fingerprinted when visiting Neal, kept her distance, and she lacked a certain sensitivity, at least on the surface. She polished her armor regularly!

          He had no-one to talk to about this. He felt awkward with June. Neal wasn’t sure that any man could talk to his mother about grieving for a gorgeous lover who had turned into an assassin and nearly killed him, but he found that _he_ couldn’t! And Mozzie, who seemed so emotionally and physically self-sufficient, found it difficult to be sympathetic. And Peter and El kept him at arm’s length, always. Especially now. Neal tried to tell himself that Peter was just trying to safeguard his wife.

           Then Peter told Neal he’d brought it all on himself. _**Karma. Reckoning. Judgment. Punishment. See how you like it**_. He expected Neal to realize and accept that he _**deserved**_ Rachel! Neal, who tried never to hurt anyone, and whom most marks spoke of with fondness even after the fact!

           Neal (and though Neal didn’t know anything about this, June also) made it clear to Peter then that he wasn’t welcome to just barge in as though he owned the whole house. He had to come through June’s area to reach Neal’s, and she knew her rights. He had to give her some notice. It was as though their partnership had started with the Dutchman and ended with his death. It faded away like a ghost-ship in the mists.

           He knew that Peter always thought he spent every minute carrying out some kind of illegal activity, or lounging around at June’s drinking wine. But Neal wasn’t one to waste opportunity. He had wanted to polish his language skills. He had found a piano teacher he liked. He had studied different techniques and bought an airbrush. Peter and the Feds wouldn’t give him training in martial arts, and also more practical sword fighting, but June had all the Family resources and she agreed without reservation. Mozzie watched, sometimes, a little puzzled, as Neal and his two instructors sweated and struggled, fell and started again. He was of the Ford school of thought when it came to such things: if I need someone beaten up, I’ll hire someone to do it.

           Other families played board games. Neal, Mozzie and June (and sometimes Alex) spent many happy hours planning their possible futures, as well as heists, mostly extremely improbable! Not that they thought they’d ever need to take such risks again, but “never get rusty,” Mozzie always said, “unless that’s the name of the best fence available!”

           When Mozzie wasn’t around, or when he was busy with his own projects, Neal and June danced and sang together, he played the piano for her and she showed him Byron’s work that he’d done while Neal wasn’t there. And sometimes they’d just read, or sit in front of the fire, Neal curled up next to June, close enough for warmth. What Neal thought of as “home”.

 

 

          The day finally arrived and Peter himself cut the anklet off Neal, and shook his hand. The anklet was placed in the ASAC safe for the Marshals to pick up the next Monday. Then he made sure that Neal gave back the badge that he’d carried, on and off, for about four years and locked it away in his desk drawer. _Somehow,_ Neal thought as he watched, _that’s just downright insulting!_

           Diana and Elizabeth had arranged a party, they drank bad wine out of paper cups and ate very nice canapés and a piece of ‘freedom cake’ each. Diana, needing to go early to some other event, looked deep into Neal’s eyes, seeing more of him than the others, as they shook hands and he slipped a note into her pocket with the number of an anonymous pager and the words, YOU EVER NEED ANYTHING, CALL ME.

           Jones shook Neal’s hand, wished him well and went home, as did most of the others. Soon it was only Peter, Elizabeth and Neal, collecting plates and glasses. They ended up in Peter’s office.

           Then Neal shrugged on a truly beautiful jacket, held his hat and leaned in for a hug and a kiss from Elizabeth. He turned and shook Peter’s hand and said, sincerely, “Thank you for all the opportunities you gave me, Peter.” Peter would never know the one important opportunity!

           “Th-thank you for all your help!” Peter answered, suddenly sounding unsure. “I thought, if you’d like, we could go out to dinner? Now that you’ve served out your time. Now that you’re no longer my CI. Something really nice? I know you like nice!”

           Neal was only half-listening, but at this he turned and took a step closer to Peter. He looked into those deep, dark, soft eyes and said, earnestly, trying one last time to make Burke see, “Peter, dear Peter, I am not at present wanted for anything. But, Peter, I _**am**_ an outlaw. I may never commit another crime. But I will never allow myself to be fenced in, measured, _**limited**_ by anyone else’s morals, systems and principles. I am a good man, a strong man. I do not hurt innocents. But I am always going to be outside the law, because I refuse to be _**under it**_. It’s who I _**am**_.” Then he stepped back a half-step, shrugged one shoulder, smiled and went on, slipping on his usual casual, light-hearted self, “About dinner…maybe some other time. Give me a call. I’d like to see how that would feel. Let’s do it!”

           “We could go to….” Elizabeth wound down, seeing Peter’s expression. She glanced over to see Neal’s face light up, and he smiled absently back at them both, said, “Thanks again! Do call!”

           He carefully set his hat and ran lightly down the stairs, grabbed his box of things off his desk (Peter was to realize later that Neal’s badge was in that box. Somehow, so was the anklet…for research purposes, Mozzie had said,) and hurried to the door where June, Mozzie and Alex were waiting for him. Their faces were wreathed with smiles, they were all dressed as well as he. Alex took the box and started going through it. Mozzie slapped her hand. Neal laughed at them, took June’s hand in his, turned and waved at Peter and El with the other… and the elevator doors closed behind them.

 

          There was a dull silence for what seemed like a long time in the suddenly lifeless, ugly, dreary, monotonous, functional fishbowl of an office.

 

“I think,” Elizabeth said, unsteadily, “that we just missed out on something very special.”

 

 

 

 

 

Fin

Comments and criticisms very welcome!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Title from 
> 
> "The Siphonaptera" a nursery rhyme, sometimes referred to as Fleas.
> 
> Big fleas have little fleas,  
> Upon their backs to bite 'em,  
> And little fleas have lesser fleas,  
> and so on, ad infinitum.
> 
> Sometimes a second verse appears, with lines such as
> 
> And the great fleas, themselves, in turn  
> Have greater fleas to go on;  
> While these again have greater still,  
> And greater still, and so on.
> 
> The rhyme is closely based on lines by Jonathan Swift from his long satirical poem "On Poetry: a Rhapsody" (1733):[1]
> 
> The vermin only teaze and pinch  
> Their foes superior by an inch.  
> So, naturalists observe, a flea  
> Has smaller fleas that on him prey;  
> And these have smaller still to bite 'em,  
> And so proceed ad infinitum.
> 
> (This from Wikipedia - I only knew the first verse) No-one seems to know the author of the 'flea' variant.


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